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Territorial Division in the Alfred-Guðrum Treaty : a Ninth Century Diplomatic Innovation?

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Territorial Division in the Alfred-Guðrum Treaty : a Ninth Century Diplomatic Innovation? This is a repository copy of Territorial Division in the Alfred-Guðrum Treaty : A Ninth Century Diplomatic Innovation?. White Rose Research Online URL for this paper: https://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/165125/ Version: Published Version Article: Ashby, Steve orcid.org/0000-0003-1420-2108 and Marriott, Andrew (2020) Territorial Division in the Alfred-Guðrum Treaty : A Ninth Century Diplomatic Innovation? Apardjon Journal for Scandinavian Studies. pp. 22-53. ISSN 2634-0569 Reuse This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs (CC BY-NC-ND) licence. This licence only allows you to download this work and share it with others as long as you credit the authors, but you can’t change the article in any way or use it commercially. More information and the full terms of the licence here: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/ Takedown If you consider content in White Rose Research Online to be in breach of UK law, please notify us by emailing [email protected] including the URL of the record and the reason for the withdrawal request. [email protected] https://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/ VOLUME 1 Apardjón Journal for Scandinavian Studies University of Aberdeen, UK 2020 Copyright © 2020 Steven P. Ashby, Jim Gritton, Sarah Künzler, Andrew G. Marriott, Blake Middleton, Ralph O’Connor, Roberto Luigi Pagani, Derek Parrott, Lyonel D. Perabo. The authors published in this issue retain copyright of their submitted work and have granted Apardjón right of first publication of the work. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial- NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. For more information, please visit creativecommons.org. First published in 2020 ISSN 2634-0577 (Online) ISSN 2634-0569 (Print) Published in Aberdeen, United Kingdom Apardjón Journal for Scandinavian Studies Centre for Scandinavian Studies University of Aberdeen Email: [email protected] Main editors: Daniel Cutts, Heidi Synnøve Djuve, Deniz Cem Gülen, Ingrid Hegland, Jennifer Hemphill, Solveig Marie Wang, Caroline Wilhelmsson. Cover image: © 2020 Marianne Mathieu Cover design and layout: Heidi Synnøve Djuve The present volume of this periodical was financially supported by The Viking Society for Northern Research and the University of Aberdeen Development Trust Experience Fund. Territorial Division in the Alfred-Guðrum Treaty – A Ninth-Century Diplomatic Innovation? Andrew G. Marriott and Steven P. Ashby Đis is ðæt frið, ðæt Ælfred cyninc ₇ Gyðrum cyning ₇ ealles Angelcynnes witan ₇ eal seo ðeod ðe on Eastæglum beoð ealle gecweden habbað ₇ mid aðum gefeostnod for hy sylfe ₇ for heora gingran, ge for geborene ge for ungeborene, ðe Godes miltse recce oððe ure (University of London/UCL 2019). This is the peace which King Alfred and King Guthrum and the councillors of all the English race and all the people which is in East Anglia have all agreed on and confirmed with oaths, for themselves and for their subjects, both for the living and those yet unborn, who care to have God’s grace or ours (Whitelock 1979). he study of past conflict and political accommodation is fundamental to archaeology, underlying any discussion of social dynamics, economics or identity. T The Treaty of Wedmore, from Viking-Age Britain, provides a key case study, with its division of Anglo-Saxon England between Scandinavian entities in the North and East and an Anglo-Saxon South. This phenomenon holds particular relevance today, as contemporary geopolitics increasingly demonstrates the need to appreciate the diversity, complexity and mutability of frontiers, as well as their relationships with military centres of gravity and buffer zones as, for example, in Northern Iraq, Syria, Libya, the Sahel and Nigeria. In such complex contestations of state or nationhood, the relationship between military occupation and early medieval state formation holds particular contemporary resonance. The Treaty of Wedmore was a significant outcome of Viking/Anglo-Saxon conflict in the ninth century (see Haslam 2006, 2012).1 The Treaty divided England into two distinct areas: King Alfred secured Wessex and much of Mercia, while East Anglia was given over to his Scandinavian adversary, King Guðrum. Though the area to the north and east of the border is often described as the Danelaw, that term has a later, eleventh-century provenance, 22 referring as much to the legal and administrative differences existing in those parts of the English kingdom that had, at various times, been under Viking control (Stenton 1989: 505- 507). Indeed, there is reason to see the Wedmore boundary as rather more ephemeral (e.g. Kershaw 2000), and it is certainly better understood within its contemporary context than as some more general marker of ‘Viking-Age’ territoriality, which was clearly a dynamic and mutable concept (Baker and Brookes 2012; Brookes and Reynolds in press). Nonetheless, the division has informed much of the scholarship of the wider period, offering an important framework for interrogating the tenth and eleventh centuries (e.g. Richards 2007). That focus has meant that questions remain concerning the nature of the original boundary agreed between Alfred and his Viking adversary Guðrum (McLeod 2014: 231-232). Was this Anglo- Saxon imposition, or a more carefully orchestrated negotiation, incorporating skilled statecraft? This paper aims to elucidate the nature and purpose of the boundary established between Alfred and Guðrum by the agreement commonly known as the Treaty of Wedmore. We suggest that the negotiation and the means by which it was enacted are yet to be properly appreciated. Led by archaeology and history, we embrace the social and political sciences in order to achieve better understanding of borders and their places in landscapes. We begin by introducing the Treaty of Wedmore, its scholarly context, and some of the intellectual problems that surround it. The paper then characterises political contexts, focusing in turn on the strategic positions of Alfred and Guðrum, before discussing the content, semantics, and possible implications of the Treaty. This gives rise to a fuller consideration of the likely geography and topography of the boundary as we understand it, and of its relationship to nearby religious, political, and military sites. Having characterised the boundary arrangements, the paper then explores why Alfred and Guðrum should settle on this rather unusual, even unprecedented, arrangement. From the outset, two questions arise: when was the Treaty agreed, and where? While the Treaty predates Guðrum’s death in AD 890, its date cannot be determined with precision. Hooke (1998: 59) offers 878, following Guðrum’s submission to Alfred after the Battle of Edington. Stenton (1989: 260) suggests it occurred no earlier than 886, while Hadley (2012: 375) opts for c. 880-90. These details have implications: an early settlement might imply an Anglo-Saxon mandate; a later date might reflect a less contested mediation. Nothing in its text confirms that the Treaty was actually concluded at Wedmore. Could it be that arrangements established orally at this site were enshrined in a Treaty of a later date? Or 23 might Wedmore have established a general principle of separation that was only determined by the extent of the subsequent withdrawal of Vikings beyond what became the Danelaw boundary? There is also the intriguing possibility of a return by Guðrum to Wedmore, sometime in the 880s, in order to conclude the Treaty. The Treaty was a binding agreement between two kingdoms separated by culture and ethnicity but sharing the Christian religion. The border (Figure 1) was to be ‘up on Temese, ₇ ðonne up on Ligan, ₇ andlang Ligan oð hire æwylm, ðonne on gerihte to Bedanforda, ðonne up on Usan oð Wætlingastræt’ (University of London/UCL 2019); ‘up the Thames, and then up the Lea to its source, then in a straight line to Bedford, then up the Ouse to Watling Street’ (Whitelock 1979: 416). Implicit are understandings of cartography, border management, harmony of legal structures, and an environment that could facilitate trade. Subsequent tenth- century events notwithstanding, the agreement may have facilitated peaceful co-existence between polities with compatible ideological and administrative worldviews. Figure 1. The Wedmore boundary. Understanding of territorial arrangements within the medieval psyche demands discipline in using the terms ‘boundary’, ‘border’ and ‘frontier’; they are not necessarily synonymous. Indeed, some political geographers (Flint and Taylor 2011: 307-309) avoid the descriptor ‘border’, and rather define a boundary as representing the limits of a territory, thereby defining the extent of a state’s sovereignty, and a frontier as a ‘zone at the edge of a historical 24 system where it meets other systems’. Others (Giddens 2013: 50) accept the term ‘border’ but also argue that it is a phenomenon associated only with the development of the nation- state – a construct emerging no earlier than the sixteenth century – presenting the characteristics of a legally determined border, an idea of national identity, and potential for commercial activity with a neighbour (Giddens 2013 and Flint and Taylor 2011, citing Tilly 1975). Geopolitically, the Wedmore concord, with a functioning border, potentially puts Alfred and Guðrum well ahead of their time, as we will discuss later. A Context for the Treaty The Strategic Picture From the mid-860s, the size of Viking forces arriving in England had increased, and by Alfred’s accession in 871 his kingdom had already experienced years of incursions. Wessex was under threat, but the political geography of Anglo-Saxon England was already complex and in a state of flux. English society had endured warfare between its own kingdoms on a regular basis, with significant political conflict occurring about once every twenty-five years (Lavelle 2010: 15). Northumbria was in turmoil in 866, experiencing civil war when York was lost. Subsequent Scandinavian policy was to rule through a dependent king, Egbert, himself ousted by the Northumbrian Ricsige, who managed to maintain independence for three years until 875/6.
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